Interview

Andrew Kim

Who are you, and what do you do?

I'm Andrew Kim, a lover of dogs and designer. I study product design but I don't let that define what I work on. I'm currently in school and I share my work and thoughts on my site, Minimally Minimal. I dream of living in tomorrow.

What hardware do you use?

A setup starts with the work machine. I use a Mid 2010 15-inch MacBook Pro daily to get all of my work done. It's got an i7 with 8GB of RAM and a 750GB Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive. I've also removed the obsolete superdrive and added a second 500GB drive using a HDD caddy. Most of the time, my Mac is hooked up to a 27" Cinema Display, which is easily the best display I've come across. I type on a standard Wireless Keyboard and use a Magic Trackpad for all of my work. People usually think that I use a Wacom tablet but I despise them. Apple's trackpads are brilliant and more than enough for most design work. I have a Kanto SYD 5 and a pair of Shure SRH 840 that I use to listen to music while I work.

I also use my retina iPad and iPhone 4s heavily. The iPad has been a great canvas to sketch with (I use a Wacom Bamboo stylus) and has become my primary mode of reading and research for my work.

My blog has made me become a hobby photographer and I use a Fuji X100 for all of my photos. I get to the various locations of my photos in my Nissan Cube.

For my design work, most of my time is spent in Adobe's Creative Suite. My layouts and renderings are finished in Photoshop and the videos I have on the site are done with After Effects. The 3D modeling of my product designs are done in SolidWorks and rendered in there too.

Photos from my X100 usually don't go through much post processing but this is all done in Aperture.

What would be your dream setup?

I dream of using a 13" MacBook Air as my main machine. I would love to throw all this crap out the window and have one machine that's light enough to carry in a tiny messenger bag. Sadly, it's simply not powerful enough for the work I do. I get so jealous when I sit at a coffee shop watching people on their Airs and iPads.